“My Boyfriend Can’t Maintain A Job Because He Likes To Smoke Weed”

Straight, no chaser resident advice columnist Terrance Dean is a HBCU graduate of Fisk University. He is also a Journalism Fellow from Vanderbilt University. A distinguished member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc., Dean is the best-selling author of, Hiding In Hip Hop; Visible Lives; Straight From Your Gay Best Friend; Reclaim Your Power!; and the novel, MOGUL.

I’ve been with my guy for about a year and a half. We really love each other, but one thing that concerns me is his work history.

I am 23-years old and recently graduated college with a Bachelors of Business Administration Degree. My boyfriend is 21-years old, and currently works as a forklift driver for a factory. When we started dating, I never thought that our relationship would grow to what it is now. In the beginning, he was working part-time doing general labor. After a couple months he was fired for shipping out the wrong equipment to a customer. It took him 3 months to find another job. I helped him to do the applications and it was an application I did that he got the job for. After a couple months, he got fired from that job because of a dirty drop. This was his second time getting fired because of this reason.

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Now, almost 6 months later, he has the same exact job through a different company. We always talk about our future together and would like to live together, but he still smokes weed! After his first day, he said that he would quit, but that only lasted a couple of days. My concern is that history will repeat itself and if it does I can’t bring myself to stay with him. Now, knowing that he won’t quit smoking, I’m hesitant to move in with him. I am tired of preaching to him about why he should quit. It’s his life to live. When I bring it up he says that this is how I met him and that weed helps keep him calm. I tell him that when we first started dating I didn’t expect us to be this serious.

Doesn’t every girl have different standards for a fling and a potential lifetime mate? Personally, I don’t see what the big deal is here. I would never smoke weed knowing that I’m risking my job. Obviously he hasn’t learned from his mistakes. Should I continue to live separately? Is this something to breakup over? I don’t know what to do! – Can’t Raise A Man

Dear Ms. Can’t Raise A Man,

I am truly proud of you for obtaining your degree, and being about your business. That is commendable. I’m also glad that you can see what your boyfriend cannot obviously see which is a pattern with his smoking weed and how it impedes his ability to keep a job. This foretelling is what your relationship will be like if you decide to move in with him. And, Ms. Honey, it will only get worse.

So, what we can deduce here is that weed is more important to him than anything. It is more important than keeping a job, earning an income, and even maintaining a relationship. Therefore, you do not have a future with him. Chile, a future of what? Him not keeping a job because he doesn’t want to stop smoking weed, and he doesn’t want anything better for himself. I wish I might!

Listen honey, pay attention to what he is showing you. He may really like you, and want to move in with you, but he is not going to change, and this repetitive cycle of him getting fired after only a few months on a job, and especially for his inability to stop smoking weed will continue throughout your relationship.

I don’t understand why most men who smoke weed, and they have a job where their jobs require for them to be drug free, and they are tested randomly, yet, they will risk everything because, “weed keeps me calm.” So, your ability to earn an income, maintain a healthy life as a responsible adult, and a relationship with a woman is not more important than stopping, or even smoking in moderation will make you take a look at yourself and the risk you run? You’d rather continue smoking hoping that you’ll never get caught because weed is more important to you than your job and livelihood? WOW! SMDH!

Look, girl, there is nothing you can say to him to make him stop. He has to want to stop. There is nothing you can say to motivate him to be better and do better. He has to want to be motivated to be and do better. And, YOUR man has no motivation to be or do better, and his life revolves around weed. Therefore, moving in with him will be very wrong. His inability to maintain a job, earn an income, and continue smoking weed will make your life miserable. You will grow to detest him, and eventually the relationship will end, and it won’t be pretty.

Please heed to the warning, and what your heart and mind is telling you. Your intuition is accurate. Trust it. Don’t over-think this, or try to rationalize it. You can’t raise a man. He is still a boy, and you don’t have time to be trying to turn a boy into a man. That is not your job. Thus, your relationship is not going to work. And, I don’t care how great he is, how nice he may be, or what his potential may be, but right now, the man he is at this moment, no ma’am. Get out! Do not proceed further! Stop! Do not pass go! There are plenty of smart, intelligent, good-looking, and motivated men in this world. And, there are definitely plenty of them who do not make weed a priority and it affects their ability to maintain a career! You better get into it, and continue being about your business. In the words of Tamar Braxton, you tell your boyfriend that the next company he should be applying for is, “Get Your Life.” – Straight From Your Gay Best Friend